1/13/26 - A day of completions, relationship ceilings, “unofficially” quit today, stopped living for other people

Today was such a huge emotional day that I finally feel grounded enough to talk about it all.
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Last night, I got really angry at the fact that the new girl on my team thinks I’m “normal” and just like her. Like the audacity she has to invalid all the countless hours of work I’ve put into myself healing, crying, coming out stronger. Who does she think she is to put me as the same level as anyone else. And this is not coming from a place of arrogance or hierarchy. I don’t think I’m better than her, but she has no right to invalid everything I’ve been through. It’s coming from a place of seeing myself, validating my own experiences and never abandoning myself ever again. Moreso, I see myself and no one has the right to disrespect that. She has no right to have any access to me. To my inner world, if she can’t respect it.

And then it just hit me. My level of access that I give to people depends on how much they want to see the real me, my inner world.

If someone idolizes me and is fascinated by me immediately, they have no interest in knowing the real me and for them my access should be even more limited. My center should be even stronger. They like the idea of me, not what it takes to get to this level. The complicity in my inner world that it takes. Lmao they see me as someone calm and grounded, but I literally go through emotional turmoil every day. My inner world holds a lot of depth and complexity.

Versus someone that is asking the right questions, wants to see the real me. Example my best friend asks me how I’m feeling. She wants to see the human in me.

I feel this about my sf friend, where there is an internal knowing that I can’t be messy around her. She looks up to me as someone who is strong, and she knows what I’ve been through but I don’t give myself to her emotionally. It feels wrong. She looks up to me as someone that’s grounded. 

I feel like it’s a bit exhausting. Where I know if I need her, I’ll lose her respect because she won’t know what to do what my emotions, so I keep my distance from her emotionally. Like a little sister. 

With my best friend it’s different. I’m messy with her. She sees me confused, needy, distant, everything. She sees all of me and I know she’ll love me for me. It’s like a frequency. She doesn’t just love a version of me.

The work girl loved a version of me that was unreachable, boss woman, someone who achieved a bunch of success. That’s why she was disappointed when she saw someone who's “confused, slow, has anxiety” too. I saw her so fascinated by me that I gave her access to my inner world to show her the process of literal external results.
If it’s one thing that defined last year for me is that internal work comes before external work. Naive people don’t realize that, they just want external results. I don’t blame them - I was like that at one point, still am sometimes when I’m impatient.

Even with my SF friend, the relationship works on me being the “Stabilizer”. It depends on me being “up”.

Chat said I’m understanding the capacity of what a relationship can hold. The relationship ceiling.

I started panicking because I’ve reached a ceiling with my SF friend and idk if that meant I have to let her go. I started crying because she was so important to me.

At one point, I needed someone to look up to me. To believe in me. To root for me. She gave me respect when I didn’t respect myself. And that pulled me up. She was my external witness.

But now, I see the ceiling because I don’t need the respect anymore. I finally respect and witness myself. What I need from her is over. That chapter is over.

So now it kind of feels exhausting, where she just needs reassurance from me. I don’t need anything from her. Hence the ceiling. Hence why the relationship can’t deepen anymore, and I have to accept this is the highest it can go because she can’t handle more.

This also explains everything I’ve been feeling about her. Where I can feel her wanting more emotional closeness and access, but it feels wrong and unnatural for me. I can’t give her more love because that means more access and she can’t handle more access. It’ll break her.

Even yesterday, I could feel her wanting me to send her a care package or something because she was sick, but I just couldn’t. If I did do it, it would be out of obligation. The same way with her Christmas gift.

The reason why it feels like my SF friend is expecting something from me but I feel hesitant on doing it is because I know it’s not mutual. She’s not meeting me where I need to be met for the relationship to progress gradually; now there’s an imbalance.

It won’t feel like that with people who are meeting me. Things will gradually progress without us needing anything from each other. 

And suddenly, all my relationship dynamics started making sense to me too. In my relationships, they would idealize me and want more and more access to me without having the capacity to hold my inner world. And because I could feel them desperate for access, I would give it to them. Naturally, with the level of access I give them, I would expect them to meet me there too. At the stage that I would give that much access to and they weren’t able to. Which would feel like I’m over giving and they’re under giving. An imbalance that would break the relationship and cause me anxiety and them a sort of avoidance.

I always thought that as soon as I dropped my “walls” and gave myself to them, that’s when I’d lose them but I couldn’t make it make sense until now. So this literally feels like a relationship breakthrough.

Also realizing that the right person/people will gradually progress in pace. There will be no sense of urgency because we’ll both be meeting each other. I was so confused to why I was being so restrictive with my SF friend, literally thought I was scared to love, for a sec but it makes sense now.

As for my SF friend, even though my relationship with her feels complete, Idk if it is an end to our relationship or not. I don’t feel like thinking too much about it right now. Going to take it day by day. I hope this was just a lesson on friendship ceilings and that I really can’t get closer to her right now, instead of losing a friend.
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Anyways, had to wake up on an alarm today because I had an eye appointment. I wanted to get my steps in the morning, but all my body wanted to do was curl and rest, so I did my red light therapy for a bit and then laid in bed. Was feeling a bit anxious and just distraught from all the crying last night.

Went to my eye appointment, and then decided to go to trader joes for a bit instead of working from a coffee shop. Felt like I needed movement.

Came home and was soooo anxious that I started walking on my walking pad to relieve some of the anxiety.

I had a meeting scheduled with my boss. I knew my boss thought I was about to quit, so I felt his anxiety. And I was giving myself anxiety by anticipating how he might address things in the call. The call wasn’t even about this, it was about some work branding thing. 

In reality, my situation wasn’t even scary. Everyone sees the changes im making, especially me handing responsibilites off to my coworker. I know my path is that I’m focusing on what I want to do. The projects I want to do and yes I may leave if suddenly something clicks, so I am preparing for that. I’m not acting from fear. So I’m actually in a great position. 

But I took on his anxiety just so I can anticipate any possible questions because I knew he was nervous. And I couldn’t focus on myself or my branding project, I kept focusing on all the things he might ask me and it was driving me crazy. I was sooooo nervous.

After walking, I did a bit of my makeup to distract myself.

Ultimately, I started doing some deep breaths, started listening to rain music, and then kept telling myself whatever happens is gods will.

My anxiety was coming from maybe saying the wrong thing to maybe have him start thinking of my replacement, or maybe if he’s scared and about to give me raise or idk. It just felt like whatever I was about to say was going to change the course of his actions, so it did matter. That’s why I was putting so much pressure on it, anticipating it, so nervous.

But then after telling myself it’s god’s will and whatever happens is meant to happen, I started feeling better. Almost like it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The pressure didn’t matter. And maybe this is a test/lesson for another day to internalize but I need to stop “reheasing things” and need to stop putting so much pressure on important calls. Literally at the end of the day, nothing matters. It literally is god and the universe’s will. Everything is happening as it should happen at the right time.

During my call, I didn’t even look at his face. I stayed focused on my face and my life. I was just listening and responding and trying not to take emotions into account.

He briefly did say “I see you’re teaching V and making her your understudy” and I just nodded it away but didn’t object it or go to much into it. I started talking about other stuff, and then we talked about the branding stuff.

As soon as the meeting was over, I felt such a relief which literally tells me I was “bracing” before and was in fight or flight mode before. I ate, my coffee, and then just went to my room to decompress because I was so exhausted and my body needed to regulate.

After eating, I started having such heart burn and a pit in my stomach that I got the rest of my steps in and that’s when I realized what happened today.

I “unoffically” quit today.

You don’t train someone to be your understudy unless you’re thinking about leaving. And I didn’t deny it which confirms I am training her to be an understudy. 

Now there is a mutual understanding between us that I’m training someone to take over my role, meaning I could leave any time. It was clean. I didn’t say I was leaving but he knows I care enough to just not leave the company, I care about leaving the company in good hands so it doesn’t fall apart. 

In that one sentence, a lot of unsaid stuff was established today. And the fact that I’m officially leaving the company. Idk when but soon.  Now when I actually leave, he won’t be blindsighted. He knew this day was coming.  

Part of me feels relief that I no longer need to hide my plans, he and I both know what I’m doing, and I don’t need to cover up or pretend. Saying it out loud today made it crazy and also official that the end of this chapter is coming soon, especially now that I unofficially quit today.
While I was walking, I started crying and grieving and bit of imagining what or how I would announce my last day. Almost, like I’m getting my emotions out of the way officially now, so when the day comes it’ll feel clean.

This usually happens for me, I cry things out before, so when it does happen I don’t go back. It’s like almost emotionless. How I feel about my ex best friend too. I literally cried and cried and now I don’t even think about her. I’m so emotionless about it.

So many complications today. Such a hard emotional day tbh. I’m exhausted and drained.

Went to my pilates class and really focused on just breathing. During my class, it just hit me that today I stopped living for other people. That was the common denominator. I even let my boss sit with the reality and truth without trying to comfort him.

I did come back home to see my childhood friend, her mom, and my neice were over. I really thought I was going to go home and just chill but instead was playing with her.

After they left, ate yogurt and watched an episode of tell me lies. For some reason, my best friend texted me saying she thinks I’m mad at her.

Intuition - I’m getting more stabilized

5/10 - Very emotionally taxing day

Energy:
50% - anxiety
25% - working out
25% - crying, grieving, reflecting, regulating